Red Brick Kitchen & Bar to Expand Next Door

The restaurant has been a staple of the downtown Dexter dining community since 2010. Husband and wife, Peter and Megan Landrum, started the restaurant four years ago and said they have simply outgrown their current kitchen and dining room space. The Landrums recently purchased the empty Bits & Pizzas storefront in November, which sits directly next door to Red Brick.

We Love Dexter staff spoke with Peter Landrum on Dec. 16 about the planned expansion.

“Fortunately, we’ve run out of room,” Landrum said. “When the space became available next door, it was no question. We had to take it.”

Landrum said his loyal customers were the biggest motivators in deciding to expand.

“If we didn’t, our regular customers would’ve strung us up,” he said laughing. “They were pushing much harder than we ever were to get the space.”

Landrum said the convenience of the available space being right next door brought a lot of potential for expansion.

“It’s something that just makes sense for us since we continue to expand and grow,” Landrum said. “We love this space, being on Main Street and being right downtown here.”

Landrum wants to keep the Red Brick atmosphere the same after the expansion.

“We don’t want to lose the comfortable feel that we have here,” Landrum said.

Planned renovations will include adding archways into the brick walls separating the two restaurant spaces. The current Red Brick kitchen will be demolished to make way for more seating space, allowing Landrum and his staff to put the much larger kitchen next door to good use.

“It will just open up so many things for us as far as what we can produce and put out on the menu,” Landrum said.

Landrum said he hopes to have both sides of the restaurant up and running in March or April of 2015.

“We have a lot of neat little things planned and some new menu items,” Landrum said. “A bigger kitchen is just going to allow us much more space to do a lot more things that we’ve wanted to do from the beginning but have been restricted. We’re really looking forward to it.”

There is currently a Red Brick GoFundMe campaign in progress to raise $25,000 towards the Red Brick’s renovation. The donations will also help to pay employees if the business has to close temporarily during construction. Over $1,900 has been raised so far. Donation rewards include free meals and Red Brick glasses to engraved bricks that will be placed in a wall to honor donors.

Landrum describes the Red Brick as a “comfortable village restaurant” that is relaxing and enjoyable for people with and without kids.